Saturday, September 09, 2006

The free speech crowd

In the months leading up to the 2004 Presidential Election, a major motion picture was released. Fahrenheit 9/11, a movie written and directed by Michael Moore, pilloried the Bush administration for its "unjust" actions in pursuing the war on terror.

On August 21, 2006, ABC released the synopsis of its mini-series, "The Path to 9/11." The docu-drama is a "dramatization is based on The 9/11 Commission Report and other published sources and personal interviews."

The film portrays the events leading up to 9/11 in a dramatized fashion. Scenes include "...a plan to capture bin Laden and bring him to the U.S. to face justice [that] is never approved for action... [later] the simultaneous bombings of two U.S. embassies... push the Administration to respond with an ineffective missile strike that some think merely elevates bin Laden's stature in the Muslim world."

Berger later admitted to stealing and destroying Top Secret documents related to "the Administration['s] knowledge - and inaction - regarding al Qaeda presence in the U.S. in 1999 and 2000... stolen were crucial notes in the margins of these drafts which reveal the thinking and agendas of the Clinton Administration relating to the mounting terrorist threat."

Unembarrassed about these actions, Berger and other former administration officials have complained bitterly about ABC's film. Berger himself called one scene, "a total fabrication."

Democratic members of Congress have also requested the ABC alter or remove the film from distribution. The EIB Network reports that Democrats sent a, "...letter threatening ABC's license for their owned and operated television stations..."

Democrats Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Charles Schumer, and others wrote a letter to ABC's leadership that asked ABC to censor the broadcast: "We therefore urge you to cancel this broadcast to cease Disney's plans to use it as a teaching tool in schools across America through Scholastic..."

America Blog describes the tactics used by Senate Democrats: "...The Senate Democratic leadership just threatened Disney's broadcast license. Note the use of the word "trustee" at the beginning of the letter and "trust" at the end. This is nothing less than an implicit threat that if Disney tries to meddle in the US elections on behalf of the Republicans, they will pay a very serious price when the Democrats get back in power, or even before..."

Let's think about the irony of this situation for a moment.

That Congressional Democrats and others would attempt to censor ABC for its dramatization -- after embracing a film like Fahrenheit 9/11 -- is the height of hypocrisy.

As EIB notes, this activity represents a "pure Stalinist tactic". And I always thought Democrats represented the "free speech crowd."